Singapore has offered to include Filipinos on military aircraft being dispatched to the Middle East to repatriate its own nationals, as the region remains engulfed in conflict following United States and Israeli airstrikes on Iran that killed the country’s top leadership.
According to GMA News Online, Singapore Ambassador to Manila Constance See said she has already formally communicated the offer to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The proposal falls under an ASEAN mutual assistance framework that obliges member states to support each other’s nationals during emergencies, particularly in areas where some countries have no diplomatic representation.
“There is an ASEAN agreement to help each other’s nationals especially in countries where our members do not have a diplomatic presence in times of emergency, disasters or conflict,” See said.
A Republic of Singapore Air Force A330 multi-role tanker transport plane is scheduled to depart for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Friday. A separate RSAF aircraft was already sent to Riyadh on Wednesday to bring Singaporeans home. See noted that the number of seats that can be offered to Filipinos will only be determined once the DFA responds to Singapore’s outreach.
Iran responded to the US-Israeli strikes with missile and drone attacks on Gulf states hosting American military installations, raising alarm over the safety of foreign nationals across the region. The Philippines has more than 2.4 million citizens living and working in the Middle East, with over 30,000 in Israel alone.
Singapore has previously carried out similar joint evacuations, bringing home nationals from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea during an earlier flight out of Oman. The Philippines itself extended comparable assistance to other nationalities when fighting broke out in Libya in 2014.
